While the Occupy Wall Street movement regards Wall Street greed as the reason for all the money sloshing around lower Manhattan, new academic research suggests that today’s huge appetite for trading may explain the financial industry’s large size.

Are target-date funds being used as they were intended? Carol Waddell, vice president of product management for T. Rowe Price, posed this question to attendees on Monday at the Center for Due Diligence’s 2011 conference in Chicago.